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Oil Trades Near Nine-Month High on Iran Tension

Bloomberg
--
Oil traded near the highest price in nine months in New York after euro-area finance ministers agreed on a second bailout for Greece.

Crude advanced as much as 2.1 percent from its Feb. 17 settlement. There was neither floor trading nor a closing price yesterday in the U.S. because of the Presidents’ Day holiday. Brent, the benchmark for half the world’s oil, was little changed in London after Europe Union finance ministers awarded 130 billion euros ($173 billion) in aid to Greece.

“The Greek bailout was priced into oil because it was expected that a deal would be approved,” said Andrey Kryuchenkov, an analyst at VTB Capital in London. “Brent is overbought. We have some geopolitical issues in Iran and Syria but OPEC is producing at record levels and output from Libya is increasing.

Oil Prices Touch 9-Month Highs The Wall Street Journal -- LONDON—Crude-oil futures climbed Monday on Iranian supply worries as Tehran threatened to halt oil exports to other European Union countries a day after it cut sales to U.K. and French companies.

Early afternoon in London, the front-month April Brent contract on the ICE futures exchange was up 65 cents, or 0.5%, at $120.23 a barrel. The U.S. crude front-month March contract was trading up $1.88, or 1.8%, at $105.48 a barrel in electronic trade. The price of oil has reached an eight month high as tensions over Iran continue to escalate. Dow Jones' Sarah Kent explains what may be pushing prices up. Photo: Getty.Prices were down slightly from an earlier spike on Iran supply worries that took oil up to nine-month highs of $105.80 a barrel and $121.15 a barrel for U.S. crude futures and (go to article)